Shoals area hospitals pay $2.1 million in taxes after bought by private company

FLORENCE, Alabama - Two Shoals area hospitals bought by a private company in 2010 paid more than $2.1 million in property and sales taxes last year after they were put on the tax rolls, The Times Daily of Florence reported.

RegionalCare, a private company, bought Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital in Florence and Shoals Hospital in Muscle Shoals in July 2010, the newspaper reported. The two hospitals were public hospitals and tax-exempt before the purchase, the paper said.

A company official on Wednesday told members of the Downtown Florence Unlimited that the tax payments will increase after the company builds a new hospital to replace the two existing hospitals, the paper said.